Working From Home as a Online Map Quality Analyst For Lionbridge

If you’ve been looking for work from home opportunities you might have heard about Lionbridge. Lionbridge is rated as one of America’s top 100 most trusted companies and they (Lionbridge Smart Crowd) often hire remote workers all around the world to complete various tasks that are related to testing, data research, data entry, language, etc. Having passed their online map quality analyst exam, and worked for them for a few months, I’ll share my experiences and some tips that might be helpful to get you through the qualification process.

What Are the Requirements?

Since the online map quality analyst job and the tasks will be related to the country you live in, it is expected that you can speak both the local language and English, fluently. All comments/feedback on the tasks has to be provided in English. High-speed broadband internet access is also a must, and you should have some knowledge/experience on how to use online-maps and how to do basic internet research. Before you’re able to start working, you’ll need to pass and complete a 2-stage exam (in 7 days), consisting of both a theoretical part and a practical part.

What Does the Work Involve?

The job consists of completing tasks related to online mapping and routing, and ranking/rating the information in relation to these tasks. You’ll need to use various online tools to investigate the accuracy of geographic queries, and do other research to find the accuracy of the name and address components related to the query.

Payment and Working Hours

As working on this project is not paid by the hour, but on a per task basis, you’ll need to keep track of the number (and type) of tasks you have completed. This information will be used to generate your invoice on billing dates. The payment rate per task varies from the type of task. Where I’m located, the pay for the most frequent task (search-task) are around $1(+).

The project has a maximum amount of 20 work-hours per week that should not be exceeded, unless authorized, as this is a part-time position. Since you’re working as an independent contractor, you can manage your own working time as you want and work whenever (new map analysts are required to be active every week) you’d like.

The Maps Analyst Qualification Process

It’s important to note that the qualification process can be rather difficult, as the job is kind of technical and you’ll need to have a good eye for detail, and not everyone will be cut for this type of work. You’ll also not be paid for the time you’re spending taking the exam and studying.

Lionbridge will give you a 200+ pages guideline that you need to read and familiarize yourself with. It is vital that you read and understand this, to be able to understand all the queries that you’ll get in the qualification process. You should read this guideline at least twice before you start taking the exam, unless you have a photographic memory, as there’s a lot of details that you might miss the first time.

You’ll be given 7 days to complete the exam, and you’ll get access to sample videos and a sample exam that you should spend some time practicing on before you start on the actual exam. You should also be aware that you can leave anytime you want during the actual exam, and come back to where you left off.

The actual exam consists of two parts:

Thetheoretical part consists of around 20 questions, and is rather easy as you’ll be able to find the answer to the questions in the guidelines. It’s important to not rush things, as some of these questions might seem easier than they actually are. By using the guidelines and double-checking the answers you should be able to continue to the next part.

Thepractical part is the most difficult part of the qualification process as this is where you’ll need to show your level of attention to details, and ability to apply the rating concepts. Understanding the queries and understanding what the user is looking to find is the key factor for passing this part. By using the guidelines and looking for examples similar to the queries you’ve got in the exam, you’ve got a much better chance of answering them correctly.

When you’re finished with the exam, you’ll get an email on whether you’ve passed it or not, immediately after you’ve submitted the last query. If you’ve passed it, you should expect a welcome-email, containing all the information needed to access the project and supplier portal within 1-2 days.

My Experience – How I Passed the Exam + a Few Tips

As I mentioned earlier, I have worked on this project for several months and I’ve been able to make a decent amount of money every month from being an online map quality analyst. What I liked the most about this job was the freedom to work whenever I wanted. As you’re getting paid per task and not per hour, you might experience the same thing as I did, that you’ll be a bit slow to begin with and not complete as many tasks as you’d like, but as you’ll get more experienced you should be able to complete more and more tasks, and earn around $15-20 per hour (depending on where you’re located).

I have to admit, I did find the exam to be quite difficult, but luckily, I did a bit of research before I signed up for this project, and I noticed that a lot of people who had not passed the exam were saying that they should have prepared themselves better and read the guideline properly. That’s why I decided to read the guideline at least twice before taking it, then I spent all the time I had available (7 days), and checked the guidelines again and again to make sure that I had understood the query and that I had done it correctly.

This is what worked for me:

Day 1 – Read the guidelines for the first time and watched the content on the Pre-exam portal
Day 2 – Read the guidelines and did the sample exam
Day 3 – Finished reading the guidelines for the second time and did the sample exam
Day 4 – Did the theoretical part
Day 5 – Started with the practical part
Day 6 – Continued with the practical part
Day 7 – Finished the exam

You should also have the guidelines open all the time while you’re doing the tasks, and use the search function (in the pdf), to easily find the examples and parts in the guidelines that are relevant to the task.

Here’s some of the parts in the guidelines that you should spend some extra time getting to know and understand properly:

Relevance – (user intent / prominence / distance) ​

Navigational result

Name accuracy (address results)

​It is also important that you use official sources to determine if the information is correct or not, whenever it is possible, and you should remember to leave a comment with a short and specific description (and link) in English whenever you rate the relevance to be Good or below, and anything other than Correct / Perfect for data accuracy.

Most people that fail this exam does so because they think they can get away with not studying and reading the guideline properly. A lot of people also only spend a day or two on reading and finishing the exam. You got a lot better chance to pass it if you take your time, and pay good attention to details.

If you want to know why I quit as an online map analyst and how I was able to find other ways of making more $$ per hour online, check out the link below:

Other Companies That Recruit Map Analysts

There are also some other companies that hires online map quality analysts. Leapforce has a map analyst project (codenamed: Shasta Project) that could be available at any time.

If you decide to start working for Leapforce, you’ll be payed through Payoneer, which is the payment processor that they use. By using my referral link (below), and apply for a Payoneer account, we will both receive a $25 reward, when you’ve received a total of $1000 on your account.

Summary

​From my experience, Lionbridge is definitely not a scam, and working as an online map quality analyst for 20 hours a week was a great way of earning some extra money. Hopefully, you’ll find this information helpful, and be better prepared to pass the exam and get started with earning some money from home.

If you have any questions or something you’d like to share, feel free to use the comment section below.

Thanks for very good and detailed information. I was just discover about Lionbridge and decided to give a try on online map quality analyst, since its the only job that offered in my region.
Hope you will keep sharing good post : )